Ice Hockey Austria: Caps conquer the table with victory over 99ers

After the fifth round, Vienna Capitals have taken the lead in the Erste Bank ice hockey league from Dornbirn. The Viennese celebrated a dull 2:1 home win against the Graz 99ers on Friday and profited from a simultaneous defeat of the Dornbirners. The Vorarlbergers had to admit defeat to Fehervar at home 2:3 after extra time.

The KAC is new third after a 3:1 in Linz. The VSV defeated champion Bozen at home 3:2 after penalty shootings. Zagreb won 4:1 in Znojmo and relegated Salzburg to last place in the table. The favourite of the league had already lost 5:6 in Innsbruck on Tuesday after extra time.

The Capitals and the Graz 99ers offered the fans in Vienna-Kagran a little intoxicating game. The visitors, who were slightly the deciding factors at the beginning, took the lead through Caito (35th), but Nissner (38th) and De Sousa (52nd) scored power playtore goals to ensure a narrow victory for the better former champion in the second part of the match.

While the Viennese celebrated their fifth success, Dornbirn had a hard time against Fehervar and eventually suffered their first defeat of the season. The Hungarians equalised the Bulldogs’ lead through Parks (14th) in the second period and took the lead a little later. The second goal from Parks (54th) saved the previous surprise team into extra time. In this match, however, the visitors had the better end for themselves, as Harty scored five seconds before the end of the winning goal.

The KAC fell behind early in Linz due to a Locke opponent goal (4th), but Strong (5th) and Kraus (18th) scored the turnaround before Bischofberger (50th) fixed the final score. The eight-placed Linz team thus conceded bankruptcy in their third home game.

VSV and Bolzano first fought each other until 2-2, but Bolzano’s ex-NHL professional Blunden (55th) equalised with no further goals in regular time. No decision was made in extra time either. In the Penalty Shooting the Villachers then retained the upper hand, the decisive attempt to exploit Pollastrone.